Subject: Re: [video-codec] Charter issues from BoF - one or many

From: "Timothy B. Terriberry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:37:49 -0800

>> I think we should do one codec.
>
> I don't think that is realistic if we want this implemented in
> hardware. There is just too many tradeoffs and we end up with more of
> a family of codecs with negotiated options.

I don't follow this logic. Just splitting a codec into a family of 
codecs doesn't make it easier to implement all the options in hardware. 
The fact that it's hardware means if you implement some function at all, 
you always pay the cost in silicon for that function whether the option 
is enabled or not.

In any case, I know the Google folks have come out very strongly against 
multiple, non-interoperable decoder profiles in the past, and this is a 
point where I agree with them. It causes interoperability failure, and 
confusion in the market over what the codec actually is, and on the 
decoder side Moore's law tends to make supporting everything easy to do 
sooner rather than later, while still leaving plenty of flexibility on 
the encoder side to make trade-offs for the constraints of a particular 
device.